Picture
by HardlyFatal
Summary: An artist submerges herself in her subject, and finds that popular opinion bears little resemblance to reality... Legolas is actually neither wishy nor washy, not that you'd know it from reading your average Legomance. DROPPED
1. Chapter 1

Title: Picture

Author: CinnamonGrrl

Disclaimer: I own nothing but an '89 Caddy Eldorado with a broken tape deck, and you're welcome to it.

Rating: Who knows what offends people? I gave it an R, just in case someone's squeamish.

Picture, Part 1

Kate stared around her with abject dismay. When she'd lay down to have a good think about the scene she was supposed to be sketching— that tense moment of Boromir finding the ring on Caradhras—she'd only expected, at worst, to fall asleep and have a nice little nap.

**Never** had she expected to fall asleep, have a nice little nap, and wake up **on the side of a frigging mountain**. Pushing her hair out of her face, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and searched for some sign of life in the swirling white world around her.

There was none.

She sighed, and wondered what it was she'd eaten that had spawned this bizarre dream. At least she wasn't cold, she thought with relief, and flopped back on the snow to wait. It didn't take long. First she heard them, and then she saw them—three tall figures struggling through the snow, dragging four short figures, a medium-sized figure leading a pony, and…

One last tall figure, seeming even taller as he was prancing about atop the snow.

Well, perhaps 'prancing' was unkind… it was really more of a stroll than a prance, Kate had to concede. The expressions on the faces of the eight non-prancers as they gazed upon his unimpeded progress was priceless, a mixture of fury and envy and helpless amusement, and she had her sketchbook and pencil out before she knew it to capture the moment.

"Hee hee," she giggled at a particularly foul glance the dwarf leveled on the elf when he looped back to the end of the line to check on the pony, and then blinked in shock. Because the elf had stopped, straightened, and turned around.

To face her.

She looked to either side, and behind her, to see if he were checking out something that was happening nearby, but no. Nothing there on the lump of snow upon which she was seated, but her.

And now it was **his** face that was priceless: she was fairly sure that elves weren't often surprised, and even more rarely shocked, but this one was both. His eyes opened wide, his lips parted, and Kate found herself scrambling to flip to a blank sheet so she could draw him that way.

Alas, the moment passed quickly, and before she could get **just** the right expression of astoundment in his eyes, they and his lips were narrowing in suspicion and, she suspected, a bit of anger. Hm. He was no less compelling when suspicious or angry either, and began to modify the drawing to reflect his new expression as he stomped closed to loom over her.

To her absolute astonishment, he reached out and snatched the pad from her, tossing it to the snow behind him. "Foolish woman, what are you doing here?" he hissed at her as a sudden gust blew snow over him—but not her. Ice crystals clung to his eyelashes, and he blinked furiously to clear them away.

**This** was interesting… she had never interacted with anyone in her dreams before. Standing, she brushed absently at the seat of her jeans and walked over to where Boromir was fighting his way through a drift, one arm clenched around Frodo's waist. Bending close, she reached out to poke his shoulder. 

"What are you doing?" the elf hollered, running after her. "Do not—" but before he could finish his sentence, Frodo started shrieking in alarm. 

"The Ring! I have lost it!"

"This is it!" Kate said, and ran back for her sketchbook. Her pencil was gone; she jammed a hand in her back pocket and found another, and began drawing. The looks of concern on the faces of the other Fellows, the panic on Frodo's, the… hm, that was interesting.

Boromir was just as apprehensive as the others, his face holding none of the avarice and power-lust she thought he'd have borne in that situation. Just as she was puzzling over it, she saw him spot the ring, and gasped at the change that came over his face the moment he grasped the chain and lifted it from its nest in the snow.

An expression of anguish, of struggle. Like he was fighting, and losing. His eyes were alight with a look of pained, reluctant adoration, and it wasn't until Aragorn shouted at the Man to return the ring to Frodo did she realize she'd been holding her breath.

Crying, too, she saw when she looked down at her pad. There, along with the rough representation of Boromir's conflicted face, were little spots where her tears had fallen. She turned to the elf, who was switching his gaze from her to the scene before him so quickly he looked like a spectator at a tennis match.

"He is going to have a rough time," she told Legolas. "Take care of him, will you?"

He frowned. "You say that as a farewell," he accused, and clasped his long fingers around her wrist. "You will not go anywhere until you tell me how you come to be here."

Kate forced a smile, even as she wiped her eyes with charcoal-smudged fingers, and on sudden impulse ripped the sketch she'd done of his astonished/angry face from the pad. "To remember me by," she said, thrusting it into his hands, and then she was gone.

*

Kate huffed in frustration and ripped out the third consecutive botched-up attempt to draw Gandalf's demise on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. No matter what she tried, no matter the angle or her attempts to draw from different characters' points of view, it just wasn't… working. There was no spark, no magic, nothing special at all about the scene.

Not like what she'd done after her dream. That piece, showing Boromir's tortured longing, was nearly electric in its vitality and passion. The dream had creeped her out in a huge way, and Kate had refused to try it again, but… 

It had been a month, and everything she put her hand to sucked really, really badly. And none of the effortless ease she'd felt when drawing Boromir had been present. Instead, it had been a grinding ordeal to churn out even the least-bad of her attempts. 

Kate growled to herself and flopped back on the bed, sketchpad in one hand and pencils in the other. She closed her eyes and began to control her breathing. Deep, calm, in, out… 

"Not you again," snarled a voice in her ear, and her eyes flew open to see Legolas run by her, followed by Gimli and Pippin. Kate leapt to her feet and followed them, skidding to a halt when the narrow corridor opened abruptly to a wide-open space spanned by a stone bridge.

A roar sounded behind her, and she spun around to find the balrog not ten feet from her. She screamed in surprise at its proximity, then screamed again when it stepped forward, its massive legs passing right through her. It was icy and scalding at the same time, pleasurable and painful in the same moment.

"Goddamnit that felt weird!" she yelled, and ran after it. The others had jumped the chasm, and Gandalf now stood with staff raised, facing down the demon. Without thinking too much about it, Kate darted in front of the balrog so she could get a really good look at the wizard's face, and began drawing.

Determination vibrated from every line in Gandalf's body, and power. His eyes, as grey as his clothing, were blazing with anger but also fear—he knew this was the end for him, she realized, but faced it anyway. "Courageous bastard," she said to him, even though he couldn't hear. 

Behind him on the bridge were massed the others—Aragorn was forcibly restraining Frodo from running to the wizard, Boromir looked stricken, and Gimli was blinking furiously to keep from crying. The other Hobbits were unashamedly weeping. Legolas was clenching and unclenching his fists, as if he didn't know what to do with himself. She didn't imagine that sense of unsurety and apprehension was familiar or welcome to him. 

Kate's pencil flew over the paper, capturing all of them in these last moments of Gandalf's life. The balrog passed through her again in its fall into the abyss, and the wild hope and joy that crossed Frodo's face was a wonder to behold. She stared hard, in that tiny moment, to memorize it to draw later, even as it melted into an expression of panic and anguish when the demon's whip latched around Gandalf's leg and tugged the Maia after him.

"No!" the Hobbit screamed, his voice shrill in the echoing gloom as he tried to free himself from Aragorn's steel grasp. 

Kate's gaze met Legolas' across the gap in the bridge. "He will be back. Do not let them despair," she called to him, and stepped to the lip of the jagged break. He gasped in realization at what she was about to do, but had no time for more than that, because Kate leapt off after the battling foes.

Even as they fell, the balrog and Gandalf fought, and she hastily flipped to a fresh page and began drawing anew. The weightlessness of their movements was completely surreal, allowing them to turn in directions and positions that would have been impossible were they both firmly standing on land.

Gandalf's hair, beard, and robes streamed after him, making him look not a little like a superhero, and Kate emphasized the Superman-cape factor. Meanwhile, the balrog was lashing furiously at the wizard, and Kate winced in sympathy along with Gandalf every time the flaming whip struck him. She carefully sketched the pain on his face, the deeply-etched lines of resignation and fury, the resolution that glimmered brightly in his eyes even as they tumbled down this endless void.

It was time to go, she realized suddenly, and had a pang of regret she wouldn't be able to accompany Gandalf on the rest of his journey—not that he'd know she was there—but there were some things that were utterly private, she supposed, and blinked to find her bedroom ceiling above her once more.

*

This was getting weird, Kate thought sourly when she found herself walking alongside Haldir and a group of Elvin archers in what must be the forest of Lothlorien. Since when was her muse completely, utterly absent except when Kate was in the grip of a bizarre dream?

"It's all so real," she murmured in awe, brushing her fingertips over the rough bark of the mellyrn trees, then tugging on a lock of silver-gilt hair as Haldir strode noiselessly through the woods to meet the Fellowship as they bumbled their way toward Caras Galadon. 

A tiny quiver of the elf's eyebrow was his only reaction. "Hm, so it's not all elves," Kate speculated. "Just Legolas." She wondered what it meant. Perhaps he'd know… she'd ask him the next chance she got. In the meanwhile… she whipped out a fresh sheet of paper and began to sketch Haldir's profile. 

His face was rather hawklike and predatory, and a shiver that was not completely fear edged its way up her spine—he was a **very** handsome man. Er, elf. The harsh planes of his face, with its angular cheekbones and bladelike nose and firm chin, were emphasized by the arrogance and strength that radiated from him. For the first time, Kate was very sorry indeed that she was incorporeal in these dreams, because his hands as they gripped his bow looked quite capable indeed, and she'd been celibate for entirely too long now…

Gimli's voice sounded in the distance and Haldir motioned to the others to stop. The derisive smirk on his beautifully sculptured lips made Kate drool even as she thought, "What a smug jerk."

She hurried to record the dismay, hauteur, and humiliation on Gimli's face as the nocked bow was thrust into his face, the avid curiosity of the hobbits, the relief of Aragorn and Boromir, and the… unbridled fury of Legolas?

He was glaring at her, looking completely homicidal. "Yowza," she muttered. If she'd thought shocked Legolas and angry Legolas were hot, then blindly-barbarically-enraged Legolas was scorching. "Stop that, you're killing me here," she admonished, breathing hard as arousal began to sneak its way through her, unable to look away from his piercing gaze as her hand moved mechanically over the paper, pencil gripped tightly—too tightly—in her suddenly sweaty hand. 

He was unable to speak to her with the others around for fear they would hear him speaking to thin air, but she knew that when he was, she was in for it. She decided discretion was the better part of valour, and waggled her fingers jauntily at him and grinning when he scowled even deeper at her before melting from his view.


	2. Chapter 2

Picture, Part 2

After five months, Kate had finished paintings of not only the three main scenes, but also smaller portrait-type pieces of the individuals, and the publishers of the calendar were nearly orgasmic in their praise of her work.

Especially the ones depicting Legolas.

She'd spent extra time rendering the exact way his eyes gleamed, she knew, as well as the precise shade of pink in his lips, and their silken-looking texture. And even though it had sent her agent into raptures, it still hadn't done the real thing justice.

"Real thing," she snorted derisively. "There is no real thing here, just the workings of an unwell mind."

Kate didn't really know how else to describe it. No other artist—ahem, no other **sane** artist—fell into powerfully realistic dreams, interacted with only a particular character, sketched what they saw in said dream, and woke up with the exact same scenes rendered on the paper beside them on the bed.

 She must be going insane. It was the only reasonable explanation.

And now, she was going to have to do it again. Three major paintings, three months of art. Nine more were needed, plus a cover. Ten more scenes in total, and the publishers were clamoring for them… even as Kate fought against returning to dream-land for her inspiration.

She looked down at the sadly crappy attempt at showing Boromir's death and sighed before ripping it from the pad and flinging it across the room. "This sucks," she complained to no one, and lay down on her bed.

She opened her eyes to find herself in the middle of teeming orcs as Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli hacked and slashed through the group of invaders. Two orcs in a row ran through her, resulting in that familiar icy-hot jangle of her nerves, and she yelped at the shock of it.

Legolas immediately whipped around to face her, his eyes narrow but not as angry as they'd been last time. "You are distracting," he hissed. "Leave."

"Gladly," she told him, and jogged out of the melee. Listening hard, she caught the sound of another fight in the distance, and went in that direction. Rounding a particularly large tree, she stopped to see Boromir fighting against a half-dozen Uruk-hai while Merry and Pippin hid behind him, their little swords poking in the kneecaps any who came near enough.

Kate plunked herself on the ground and began to draw. The powerful lines of Boromir's body, the swirl of his cloak as he struck and parried, the utter commitment to protecting the Hobbits, the… tears pouring down his face. 

Oh, crap, Kate thought, and found her own eyes filling. He knew he was going to die, and didn't falter. This was his redemption, his payment for his weakness. She didn't bother to look down at her pad as she drew, just let her hand take over as she locked her gaze on the scene. 

A gob of spittle flew from an Uruk's mouth, Merry hooted in triumph when his sword stabbed right into the fleshy part of another Uruk's thigh, and Boromir fought on. Kate wept unashamedly at his strength and courage, and then there was just one left.

Boromir was panting hard, the right leg of his trousers wet and dark with blood from a minor wound, as he turned to face the last Uruk-hai. All four of them gasped to see him slowly and with great deliberation aim his bow directly at the Man.

"No!" Kate screamed, even as she knew it was useless, and dropped her pad to place herself between the Uruk archer and Boromir. The arrow flew through her to strike him with a sickening thud, and she screamed again, frantic to shield him somehow even as a second and third arrow were released with twangs from the Uruk-hai's bow. 

"No," she moaned, falling to her knees beside him, and was shocked to find she could touch him. Her amazed eyes flew up to meet his.

"Protect… the hobbits," he rasped.

"I can't, " Kate replied miserably. "I can't do anything, I tried to keep him from shooting you but the arrows went right through me."

"You have been here as I fought?" he asked, incredulous, and coughed up a gout of blood. Kate used the hem of her shirt to wipe his face.

"Yes," she said simply. "I have never seen anything so brave in my life."

His gaze, a dark anguished blue, latched onto her face. "You cry for me?"

Kate rubbed her hand over her cheek, smearing it with his blood but not caring. "I don't know why you can see me all of a sudden," she said, ignoring his question. "I thought Legolas was the only one who could."

He coughed again, and she patted her shirt against his mouth. "I am dying," he told her. 

"I know." Maybe that was why… she yanked off his leather gauntlet and gripped his hand tightly. "I won't leave you."

"Good," he gasped, letting his head fall back. Kate scrambled forward to pull him against her, propping his head on her lap. "Where is Aragorn?"

"I don't know…" Kate squinted into the trees, but could see nothing. "Legolas!" she screamed. "Legolas!"

Seconds later the elf came crashing through the woods toward them. "How is this possible?" he demanded at the sight of the woman holding Boromir. 

"I don't know," she wailed. "I couldn't do anything. The archer took Merry and Pippin."

Legolas stared at her a long moment, and then Gimli and Aragorn stumbled into view, the latter falling to his knees beside Boromir.

The wounded man declared his support for the future king, and insisted he would have been a stalwart champion and defender. Boromir's eyes were beginning to glaze over, and Kate began to sob. 

"Why do you cry for him?" Legolas asked, his voice low in her ear. 

"How can I not?" she asked, smearing more blood over her face as she scrubbed at her tears. "He didn't want the ring, not really. It poisoned him, made him into something he despised, and he paid for it with his life. It's the most tragic fucking thing I've seen in my life. How can I not cry?" She was screaming at him now, and not caring in the least. "Why aren't you crying, you cold bastard?"

To her shock, she felt his arm come around her shoulders and squeeze hard, and she collapsed against him, sobbing into his shoulder even as Boromir's grip on her hand began to slacken. "Oh, God," she moaned, pulling from Legolas to hover over Boromir. 

"You will not leave me?" he whispered.

"Never," she promised, her tears falling on his hand and face, making tracks in the dirt and blood there.

"What is that?" Aragorn demanded hoarsely, and Kate's head snapped up to see the Man's gaze locked onto the clean trails through the grime. She stared in shock at Legolas, who looked equally surprised. Aragorn drew his finger down Boromir's cheek. catching moisture from a tear on his fingertip. "Someone cries for you, Boromir."

"It is an angel," he said, his voice wheezing in his chest. "An angel come for me." Behind Kate, Legolas snorted skeptically, and she glared at him. "I can die now that my angel is here." 

Kate slumped down until her head touched his chest, and his other hand came up to rest on her hair. "Farewell, my king," he said, and died. Kate heard the faint thumping of his heart slow and stop, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. 

*

When Kate awoke, her head was pounding furiously. Her pulse thudded powerfully through her skull, and the force of it was making her queasy. It was completely dark in her room, and she seemed to have turned over in her sleep as she was sprawled face-down. No wonder she'd squirmed around, that dream had been **terrible**, utterly horrific. 

She'd known he was going to die, but she'd tried to stop it anyway, and had been devastated by it when it had happened. More tears filled her eyes, and she whispered, "Boromir," before she was overcome.

"What?" asked a groggy, and male, voice from beside her.

Kate choked in mid-sob. "What?" She pushed herself to a sitting position and groped in the darkness for the bedside lamp. Finding it finally, she flicked it on and gasped to find Boromir lying on the other side of the bed. 


	3. Chapter 3

Picture, Part 3

"What the hell is this?" Kate yelled, and fell off the bed.

"Argh," Boromir groaned, gripping his head in his hands as he sat up. Then, leaning over the edge of the bed, he peered down at her. "I feel uncommonly strange, lady." She stared up at him with wide eyes as he glanced down at his body. There were holes where the arrows had pierced him, but no arrows, nor any wounds, either. "Might you know what has happened?"

Kate got to her feet. "I have no idea whatsoever," she informed him, and saw with shock that her clothes were covered in bloodstains. Never before had she brought any sign of her travels home with her, apart from the sketches… "Last thing I knew, you were dying, and I was crying, and then I woke up, and cried some more, and you were here." 

"I am dead, then," he said with finality. "The afterlife is not as I had expected it to be…" his voice trailed off as he noticed something.

Kate looked around her bedroom. It wasn't too messy, and hey! The bed was made. She'd done laundry yesterday so there were no piles of dirty clothes on the floor… just a heap of drawings on the desk, and the last the of oil paintings propped up against the wall. It was this painting that caught Boromir's attention… it was his face, filled with longing, as he gazed upon the ring dangling from his gloved hand. Sunlight glinted from the ring and in his eyes, a powerful spark uniting all three. 

Slowly, never moving his gaze from the painting, Boromir stood and walked to it. He still wore one glove, and slowly stripped it off before grasping the painting's wooden frame. His other hand drew back and made a fist, and Kate had barely enough time to scramble across the bed and to his side to snatch it from him before he aimed a blow at his own face in the picture.

Shielding it behind herself, she looked up at him. He really was a large man, and dwarfed her petite frame by nearly a foot. The look on his face was frightening, of repulsion and loathing, and he reached past her again for the painting. Kate ran out into the living room and shoved it under the couch before darting to the other side of the room, hoping to trick him from discovering where she'd hidden it.

"Listen," she said placatingly. "I know you're upset…"

"Upset?" Boromir growled. "Lady, you have no concept of how upset I am." He took a step toward her, and though she felt herself begin to shake, she didn't back away. "That image of me, that disgusting image, is a reminder of my weakness. Of how I betrayed the Fellowship, how I broke it! I cannot bear to leave it whole." He took another step forward. "Let me destroy it."

"I can't," she whispered, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans to try and stop their trembling. Even if she hadn't needed it to fulfill her contract with the calendar publishers—which she did—the scene was poignant and deeply important to the entire tale, deeply important to understanding Boromir's motivations and actions. It was needed.

"Lady," he groaned, and slumped into a chair, his every movement jerky with exhaustion as he bent over, elbows on knees, and buried his face in his hands. "What has happened to me? I used to know exactly who I was, what I was doing. Now I know nothing."

"That sounds familiar," Kate muttered, and came to plop on the floor at his feet before grabbing his hands. "Listen, I'll be honest with you. I don't know what the hell is going on." His blue eyes latched onto her brown ones, clinging to her like a lifeline. "All I know is that I'm an artist, I was hired to create a calendar depicting the important scenes of a book, and every time I try to think about this book, I end up **in** the book somehow."

"Book?" he asked, his face puzzled under the dirt, blood, and tear-stains. "What are you talking about?"

Kate sighed. "In my world—where we are now—you and everyone else, everyone in your world, all of Middle-Earth, is just a story in a book."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you saying, Lady, that I do not really exist but for a man's imagination?" He smirked a little then, his skepticism almost insulting.

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying," she snapped, dropping his hands and standing. Serves her right for trying to be comforting. "You're just a character in a book."

He stood as well, and spread his arms wide. "Then how do you explain my presence in this place?" He looked around then, eyes becoming progressively wider as he took in the electronics of her TV, stereo, lamps, and digital clock.

"I cant," she replied crossly. "But I can't explain my freaky dreams, either." She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the floor, trying desperately to figure out what was going on, until an odd squeak from Boromir grabbed her attention. "Hey! What are you doing?" she demanded, bolting over and slapping his hands away from her stereo. "Don't touch anything, dammit!"

The expression on his face made her feel **terrible**, like she'd kicked a wounded puppy. "Oh, god, don't," she said falteringly, and felt her anger at him dissolve. What a jerk she was—the poor bastard had just died, for chrissakes, and she was hollering at him like a fishwife. "Listen, let's start over, ok?"

He nodded, then smiled brightly, making Kate suspect his woe of a moment before hadn't been entirely genuine. "First off, let's get you a shower," she told him. Now that the intensity of his death and miraculous appearance in her apartment had worn off, it was painfully apparent that the man had some desperate need to reacquaint himself with a bar of soap.

"A what?" he asked, and Kate sighed. 

"It's like a bath, but you stand up for it, and… listen, just come with me, I'll show you." She led him into the bathroom. "How hot do you like your water?"

"Not too hot?" he said, more of a question than a statement, and Kate turned the knob and pulled. He jumped back when water began to course from the showerhead. "Water at whatever temperature you wish, whenever you wish?" he asked quietly. "What magic is this?"

"No magic," Kate laughed. "Just the wonders of modern plumbing." While the water warmed up, she fetched a washcloth and some towels for him, and laid a new bar of soap on the pile of linens. "There," she said, turning back to him, "I think that's everything you'll need—"

Her words cut off sharply when she was confronted with six-foot-two of naked male. "Um. Eager for your shower, are you? Right. I'll just be… somewhere else." And she bolted out, ignoring his laughter as she slammed the door shut behind her. 

Kate spent the time Boromir was in the shower by cleaning up her apartment. Amazing how much dust could settle on your horizontal surfaces when you were being sent to wacky alternate dimensions. Then she changed out of her bloodied clothing—frowning sadly at the white peasant blouse, which was unsalvageable—and settled on her bed, belly-down, to flip through the sketches she'd made of Boromir's death. 

Even though tears once more filled her eyes, she groped blindly for a pencil and began drawing out how he'd looked before the moment of his death. The arrows jutted obscenely from his shoulder, his pelvis, his chest, and his face was a mask of pain and anguish, but also of peace. As if he still felt guilt for his weakness, but that he had managed to gain some measure of redemption…

She sniffed and used the heel of her other hand to wipe tears from her eyes while she sketched in a single tear-track on his cheek. It wasn't easy to recognize it, because of the stubble on his cheek, but she knew it was there, knew she had been a part of that moment, knew she had to include that tiny piece of herself in the scene.

"Why do you weep for me?" 

Kate looked up to find him standing there, framed by the bathroom door, clutching a towel around his hips. His damp hair hung around his face, and she was surprised to find that it was not only lighter than she'd thought, but somewhat reddish too. She laid down the sketchpad and, resolutely ignoring his almost-naked body, dug in her dresser for sweatpants and a t-shirt. She handed them to Boromir and turned quickly away when he allowed his towel to drop to the floor.

"Why do you weep for me?" he asked again, and she dared to face him, vastly relieved to find him safely dressed. Her eyes met his for an endless moment as her thoughts whirled in her head. Why **was** she crying for him? 

"I'm not sure," she said at last. "I've been crying over you since the first time I saw you, on Caradhras. It's just so awful, all of it. A horrible situation, a horrible thing to happen to decent people, so much misery and pain…"

"So you pity me," he finished, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed, facing away from her. "I do not like being pitied."

Kate scrambled to her knees and tugged on his shoulder to make him face her. "I don't pity you," she told him, looking hard into his eyes. "It's more sympathy than pity, and a sort of despair on your behalf, I suppose…" She frowned. "Dammit, I'm no good with words. If I were, I'd have been a writer instead of an artist." She sighed. "Look, all I'm trying to say is that I don't feel sorry for you, just bad. I wish you didn't have to go through all that crap."

"But I did," Boromir replied, and covered her hand on his shoulder with his own. It was much larger than her own hand, and very warm, and Kate realized that she now had a very large man in her home who she really didn't know hardly at all. "I did endure all of that, and it would seem there is much else I must endure also."

He sighed and released her hand, standing. "I know not what to do with myself, my lady," he told her. "I do not think we are in Middle-Earth any longer, and would know what life I can make for myself here. I would not presume to your charity for longer than I must." He shot her a glance from beneath lowered lashes. "Especially since I still do not know your name."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, feeling like an idiot. "I'm Kate, Kate Greenlee." She made an awkward motion around her. "Welcome to my home."

Boromir bowed to her, laughter in his eyes. The courtly gesture looked quite peculiar indeed, with him wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with Tweety Bird on it as he did. "And I am Boromir, son of Denethor," he replied, then sobered. 

"What is it?" Kate asked softly, putting her hand on his arm. 

"My father," he replied, staring at the floor as he absently covered her hand with his own. "He will be distraught to learn of my…" He looked up at her. "Am I dead?"

She blinked. "I… don't know," Kate said at last. "I mean, obviously, no, you're not dead, you're right here with me. But on Middle-Earth… I don't know what you are." She frowned. "But I can find out."

He watched as she lay down on the bed, wiggling a little to get comfortable. "Your way of learning more is to take a nap?" he asked mildly.

"So skeptical," she admonished, eyeing him. "You look pretty wiped, why not take a nap yourself?" She motioned to the other side of the bed. "Make yourself comfy."

His brows came together in a frown. "You mean to share the bed with me?" There was a world of things unspoken in that question.

Kate rolled her eyes. "For sleeping purposes only, big guy. C'mon." She plumped up the pillow. "Doesn't that look inviting? Can't you just imagine letting your head sink into its feathery softness? Isn't it—"

"Yes, my lady, I understand," he grumbled, and lowered himself to the bed, letting his eyes fall blissfully shut for a moment before cracking one open at her. "It is my heartfelt hope that you do not snore, my lady," he said at last. "I have spent many long nights awake because of Legolas' sawing of many logs."

She stared at him, agog. "Legolas **snores**?" she demanded, trying to picture it. The image simply wouldn't come. 

Boromir nodded smugly. "I was sure he would bring the mines down around us whilst we were in Moria," he said with no little satisfaction. She waited for him to say more, but he was already asleep. She studied him a moment. His face wasn't really handsome; it was much too craggy and rugged, too hearty and with none of the refined angles and planes that a face of classic beauty—say, Legolas'—would have.

Kate found her hand reaching for her sketchpad and pencil once more, and it was almost an hour later when she was done drawing him in repose and had touched up the other drawings she'd done that day. Satisfied at last, she placed her tools on the floor beside the bed and lay back, flinging her arm over her face as she yawned. 

She was exhausted, and not just physically. Her mind felt battered, and she longed to know exactly what had happened, what had gone wrong, for this whole thing with Boromir to happen. So caught up in her thoughts was she that she didn't even notice when she fell asleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

Picture, Part 4

Kate opened her eyes to find herself flat on her back and squashed quite uncomfortably between what seemed to be a rock and a hard place. Stars in the black velvet of the night sky peeked through the leaves overhead, and she could smell the smoke of a campfire. Looking to one side, she saw that the rock was Gimli, his chest moving rhythmically with his breath. He even wore his helm to sleep, she noted with a smile.

Her smile swiftly faded, however, when the hard place on her other side turned to face her, and an arm wrapped around her waist before the hand came up to cup her breast. Catching her breath in shock, and looked to see it was Aragorn, and thankfully, he was still fast asleep. 

Sitting up hurriedly, she looked around to find Legolas sitting about ten feet away, watching her. Then his gaze dropped lower, and smirk settled on his lips. Kate looked down too, and frowned as she pushed Aragorn's hand from her body. "Lecher," she muttered, and stood up.

"He has been groping me the entire journey as well," Legolas said, and laughed when her eyes widened comically. "No, not really. Gimli would kill him if he tried anything." The elf motioned to a flattish log on the other side of the fire. "Come, join me."

Kate made her way cautiously to the log and sat, her eyes on him the entire time. He held her gaze easily, and she knew that she'd never win a staring game against him. "Why are you being so nice this time?" she asked at last. "You were very grumpy last time, and in Lorien I thought you would kill me."

"So you left like a scared rabbit?" he drawled, and she nodded, unable to actually speak because of the way the firelight flickered across his face. She groped for her sketchbook, **needing** to record how he looked.

But he snatched it from her—his motion so quick she wasn't sure it had actually happened—and said, "No. No more drawing until you explain what is happening."

Kate sighed. "I wish I knew." He only quirked a brow at her and waited. "I'm an artist. I was hired to paint a series of scenes from a certain book, but I was having a lot of trouble with it. I read the books over and over, but…" she shrugged helplessly. "I just wasn't inspired."

She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. "I decided to try to meditate, an author friend of mine told me it helped when she had writer's block. So I laid down on my bed, and closed my eyes, and began to count my breaths, and before I knew it, I was on Caradhras, and then the rest of you showed up."

Legolas reached into the neck of his tunic and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed to her. Unfolding it, she saw it was the sketch she'd given him that first day on Caradhras… that quick drawing of him looking shocked and angry at the same time. She burst out laughing. "Oh, it's terrible," she explained between giggles. "I can do much better, if you like," she offered. The sketch really **was** terrible… too careless, and confused from the switch in his expression. Legolas looked more cartoonish than realistic, quite ridiculous.

"That will not be necessary," he told her, and took the sketch back, folding it and carefully replacing it in his tunic. "Please continue."

"Well, so, then," she began awkwardly. "Um, I have a question to ask first." At his nod, she continued. "What happened to Boromir?"

Legolas frowned at her. "You know what happened to him," he told her. "You wept all over him as he died."

Kate sighed in exasperation. "No, I mean… what happened to his body?"

He frowned deeper. "We cleaned him, and placed him in one of the boats, and sent him down the river, hoping one of his kin or countrymen would find him."

Kate blinked. "So, his body definitely was here? You had it with you the whole time?"

His brows snapped together. "What are you saying?"

She sighed. "Look at the last drawing in my pad," she instructed, watching him as he obeyed. When he flipped to the sketch of Boromir sleeping, a fine tremor in his shoulders was her only indication of his surprise. 

"What are you saying?" he repeated.

"I'm saying that Boromir is alive, and well, and wearing my Tweety Bird shirt as he sleeps in my bed," Kate told him. He stared blankly at her. "Ok, forget the Tweety Bird part. He's alive, and sleeping in my bed as we speak."

"And are you in the bed as well?" he asked slyly, cutting a glance at her, and she frowned. 

"God, are all elves such pervs?" she demanded, looking around for something to throw at him. She located an acorn and launched it his way, where it bounced harmlessly off his belly, which was quivering with laughter. "You're awfully cheerful for someone who's just been told that someone he saw die not long ago is actually not that dead."

"Well, I am glad to know that Boromir isn't really dead," Legolas said calmly. "Although I do not understand it."

"That makes three of us," Kate sighed. "Boromir and I can't figure it out either. We thought maybe you'd know, that's why I came back during a boring moment."

He gazed at her a long moment. "You know what will happen to us, then?"

"Yeah." She picked up a twig at her feet and began to trace patterns into the dirt around the fire. "I know all the dramatic moments of this whole story, that's why I keep showing up at inconvenient times." She looked up to see him eyeing her speculatively. "And before you ask, no, I'm not gonna tell you anything."

He only raised a brow at her in that maddening, condescending way. "Did I ask you to tell me anything, my lady?"

"Well, actually, yeah," Kate replied. "You said you wouldn't give my pad back until I did."

"So I did." And he handed it over. She grabbed it eagerly, and began at once to sketch him. He smirked. "Shall I pose for you?" And he arranged himself in an exaggerated position, standing with one foot up on the rock where he'd just been sitting, fists on his hips, head tilted rakishly as he stared upwards. He looked, somehow, thoroughly gorgeous and ridiculous at the same time, and while it wasn't what Kate had originally had in mind, her hand flew over the paper to record it. Even the way his cloak fluttered in the faint breeze was captured by her pencil, and when she was done, she was giggling uncontrollably.

Legolas declared it a masterpiece, and offered her a bite of lembas. She couldn't pick it up or eat it, however, and he frowned. "How is it that you could touch Boromir when he died? And why was Aragorn able to make merry with you just before?"

"That was hardly what I'd call 'making merry'," Kate retorted sourly. "It was barely frisky, let alone merry. Hell, it wasn't even frolicsome. I wouldn't even call it playful. The man was asleep, didn't know what he was doing. Probably thought I was Arwen. If he thought anything at all besides, 'mmm, warm boob'."

"You sound insulted by his lack of intent, my lady," Legolas teased. "How long has it been since **you** have made merry?"

"My sex life—" she began, but he interrupted.

"Or lack of same—"

"--Is none of your concern," Kate finished with a sniff, ignoring his laughter. 

"That can swiftly be remedied," he informed her.

"What, the fact that it's none of your damned business?"

"No," he purred, and started around the fire to her. "I mean, the lack of it."

"You're not—are you?" she gasped as he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "You're not making a pass at me, are you?"

Legolas brushed his lips, those succulent pink lips of his, across her palm and the inside of her wrist. "I do not know what a pass is, my lady," he told her gravely, and licked the inside of her elbow. 

"Oh, God," Kate gasped, feeling her knees melt away. Luckily, he expected this reaction, and caught her easily in his arms. Striding away from the others, he laid her down on his outspread cloak and began to remove her t-shirt, nibbling at each newly-exposed inch of flesh.

"You really shouldn't be—mmm, oh, God—doing this," she panted, her hands in his hair. She couldn't tell if she was pushing him away or pulling him closer

"Make me stop," he told her, pulling down the waist of her track pants and tracing his tongue around her navel. 

"Ok," she agreed. "I'll do that."

His hands pulled her track pants down over her hips to bunch around the top of her thighs, and his fingers lightly stroked her dark curls as he licked a path across the soft part of her belly. "When?"

"Very, very soon," she moaned when his talented hand slipped between her legs, caressing the soft skin there.

"Hm," he replied, rucking her shirt up to reveal her breasts and latching onto a nipple, tugging it with lips and then teeth. "Will you make me stop now?" 

"Oh, yesss," Kate moaned, arching up to his hand. "Any moment now…"

And he slid a long finger across her swollen, wet flesh before slipping it inside her. The shock of pleasure was followed immediately by a shock of fury—he'd treated her with outright hostility in all the other times they'd spoken, and suddenly he wanted a booty call? She wrenched herself out of his embrace.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shrieked, forcing herself to remain angry at the image of his lust-clouded blue eyes trained on her, face softened with unfulfilled desire. Her entire body felt like a taught bowstring, and even as she stood glaring at him she felt her thighs squeeze together in frustration.

"I know you want me, my lady," Legolas replied, sounding utterly unconcerned about much of anything at all. He stood with languid grace  "I did not think you would mind me taking liberties with you."

"If I thought you actually gave a damn about me past the fact that I'm female, I might not mind," she snapped at him. "I don't appreciate being used."

Legolas shrugged. "What else is coupling, but using each other for pleasure?" He tilted his head to one side, considering her. "But I am sorry for offending you. It was not my intention."

Kate nodded slowly at him, still angry but accepting his apology. "I'm going to go now," she said. "You're not going to tell the others about Boromir, are you?"

He smiled, and she felt her knees weaken again. "I would prefer they not believe me losing my mind."

She nodded again, and felt herself float away from the scene. When she opened her eyes again, she found Boromir sitting cross-legged beside her on the bed, watching her intently.

"What?" she demanded, sitting up and pushing a hank of hair back over her shoulder.

He held up her sketchpad, pointing to the picture of the dramatically posing elf. "I watched as an image took shape before me. Legolas was in a rare good mood, was he not?"

"I'll say," she muttered, glancing down to make sure all her clothes were where they should be.

A faint smile curled the corner of Boromir's lips. "Ah, yes," he commented, and flipped to another page. Holding it out to her, he said, "Was he all you imagined?"

Kate looked down at the drawing; she hadn't done it, but there on the page was an image of Legolas' face, his hair mussed, lips swollen, the unmistakable blaze of desire in his eyes. He looked like a man—elf, rather—in the midst of making love. She swallowed thickly, then raised embarrassed eyes to him. He looked amused, but also… disappointed. Like he expected more from her.

Her temper shattered. It had been a long, weird day, after all. "Listen, Boromir, I don't have to live up to any notions you have of how a woman should be. It's none of your business if I decide to fuck Legolas. I don't owe you any explanations, and it sure as hell isn't any of your business what we got up to while I was there."

The amusement fled from his face, and a veil of ice seemed to drop over his eyes. "Indeed, my lady," he acknowledged. "I forgot myself; please forgive me." He stood stiffly from the bed and made his way to the door.

"Where are you going?" Kate demanded. "It's the middle of the night."

"I will sleep on the divan in the other room," he told her, his voice cold, his words clipped. "I do not wish to trouble you more than I have already."

"Don't be stupid," she snapped. "You're way too tall for the sofa. Sleep in the bed."

"I do not share beds with women who are free with their bodies," he informed her haughtily, and she jolted back as if he'd slapped her. 

"You total bastard," she whispered, mortified to feel her eyes tear up. Blinking them away furiously, she stomped to the linen closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket. "I'm sleeping on the sofa. You sleep in the bed, or wherever you want. I don't care." Ignoring him completely, she flopped onto the sofa and yanked the blanket over her head, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the sound of her crying. She knew he stood there a long moment, watching her, but didn't care. Finally, his footsteps went down the hallway to the bedroom and there was silence. 


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note:

Some of my reviewers have expressed confusion over Legolas' behaviour in the last chapter. Perhaps I need to rewrite a bit-- -if you need to explain what you're up to, you've failed as an author, I feel. You see, I've read so many crappy fics where Legolas is nothing but a big sissy, and it's all just a bit 2-dimensional for my taste. I wanted to make his character more complex and realistic. The reason we hate Mary Sues is because they're perfect, unrealistically so, and they become caricatures of real people. 

I don't like flawless Legolas (or as I think of him, Legowuss) any better—I want him to have some depth, and a little bite. There's a reason one of my favourite all-time characters is Spike, aka William the Bloody, from BTVS. Sensitive, hot, and dangerous. Mmmm. I like my men like I like my evil: evil.

Same with Boromir. The entire point to this story is for the reader to be surprised—that the guy you thought was going to be the romantic lead, because of his looks and heroism, won't be quite what you expected. And the guy who was seduced by the dark side, the one who betrayed himself and his friends, ends up being the one you want to snuggle.

I hope I haven't ruined it by explaining my motivation too much. But it's likely that if you're reading this, you aren't just here for gratuitous elf-nooky. Not that there's anything wrong with elf-nooky, because, yum. But still.

Picture, Part 5

When Kate woke the next morning, there was utter silence in the apartment, and for a moment she thought the events of the previous evening might have been yet another vivid and surreal dream. Then she realized she was, indeed, sleeping on the sofa, and felt her assumption was unlikely. 

Reaching under the sofa, she pulled out the painting of Boromir on Caradhras. "Yep, it was all real," she sighed, and sat up, propping the wooden frame of the painting on her thighs as she stared at it. "This is all so frigging strange," Kate whispered, running her fingertips across the ring, then touching them to each of Boromir's eyes. "I don't understand how it can be possible."

"Nor do I," said Boromir quietly. She looked up to see him in the doorway, looking uncertain and uncomfortable and utterly bizarre in her sweatpants and Tweety t-shirt. Knowing he was probably sorry for his words the previous night, Kate patted the seat beside her. His look of relief made her smile. "I am forgiven, then?"

"Yeah, I guess," she told him. "I was never one for holding a grudge."

"Glad I am for that, my lady," he replied, and took her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. "What do we do today?" His belly grumbled, and he looked down at it in alarm.

"First, we eat," Kate said with a laugh, grabbing his hands and tugging him to his feet. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she began to beat eggs and put skillets on the hob to heat.

"Not anything like a dead man should, I would think," he replied, gazing around him at the appliances. "Did Legolas know anything about what has happened?" Boromir's voice was carefully neutral.

"No, he's just as clueless as we are," she said, and poured the eggs into the skillet, then stirring. She placed frozen sausage patties in the other skillet, and soon the kitchen was filled with the sounds and smells of cooking food. She turned to find him leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, studying her. She felt an urge to explain that she hadn't really done anything with Legolas, but a tiny burst of rebellion kept her lips sealed. "Maybe we can ask Gandalf," she said finally.

Boromir quirked a brow. "Lady, that good man is dead. Did you not know?"

Kate grinned. "Oh, I knew. I followed him and the balrog when they fell." She tilted her head to the side consideringly. Wouldn't hurt to let him in on the future of the Fellowship now, would it? He was dead, after all, and not likely to be able to change the timeline or plot at all. That thought made her wonder fleetingly what the hell she was supposed to do with him now he was in her apartment instead of Middle-Earth, but she pushed that thought away firmly. First things first.

She padded on bare feet to her bookshelf and took out her set of Lord of the Rings books. They were in near-pristine condition; she'd never read them before acquiring the contract for the calendar and had bought the books for that express purpose. "I have work to do today; I owe my publishers at least one more proposal, and have a few finishing touches to put on that last painting. You can read these while I'm busy." She placed the books in his big hands.

He looked doubtful. "Trust me," Kate told him, laughing as she shoveled scrambled eggs and sausage patties onto a plate for him. "They'll explain everything."

After they ate, she left him settled comfortably on her sofa—making him promise to leave her painting of him undamaged—and went to the spare room, which she had set up as a studio. Taking up her sketchpad, she sat on the stool before her draft table and studied the scene of Boromir's death, and felt tears come once more to her eyes. 

"This sucks," Kate muttered crossly, dashing the tears from her face with one hand even as the other began to set a canvas on the easel and select paints from the squashed and smudged tubes in the shallow drawer underneath. Staring at the sketch, already beginning to decide which colours she needed to mix to attain what she had in mind, she tugged on the thoroughly disreputable old Oxford shirt she'd appropriated from her father to serve as a smock when she worked.

Then she picked up a palette knife and began mixing blue, white, and black until she found the exact shade of the sky that day. Thinning it a little, she selected a large wall-painting brush and began to lay a wash of delicate colour over the top half of the canvas, using the bristles to mottle and feather the colour, making it look more natural. 

Now for the ground. Same technique, but this time she used brown, with hint of green. Darker brown, a touch of red, and hillocks and tree trunks took shape before her. Taupe, white, grey became rocks and highlighted the gnarls on tree trunks and branches… She loaded her fan brush with light green and a slash of yellow, and the wintry, leafless landscape became a summer scene. More yellow, a dash of peach, and sunlight dappled through those leaves.

After a few hours, she had most of the scene roughed in except for the figure of Boromir himself. Kate couldn't decide whether she wanted to show him upright, the Hobbits behind him with their little swords, a group of orcs facing them as he wept at his own weakness… or him alone, on the ground, in the dirt and fallen leaves, with a tentative look of peace passing over his face as life left him.

Her need to choose was thankfully delayed when Boromir knocked on the door and entered. "Sorry I am to interrupt, my lady," he began, eyes wandering with interest around the cluttered room, "But I am hungry, and am not ashamed to say that your gadgets in the kitchen strike great fear into my heart."

Kate glanced at the clock; it was nearly 4 o'clock in the afternoon- she'd been painting for almost seven hours, and as soon as she realized it, her neck and feet began to ache something awful. "Oh. Yeah." Feeling pretty stupid—as well as a bad hostess, for making her guest starve all day while she worked—she hung up her smock and padded to the kitchen, Boromir trailing behind her like a puppy.

"Cupboard's almost bare," she muttered as she unearthed chicken breasts and broccoli florets from the freezer and a box of pasta from the pantry. As she put the frozen food into water to thaw, she eyed Boromir, who stood staring at the range with an expression of curiosity mixed with fear. If it was almost four on a Saturday, the store would close at five… "Can I trust you to sit still and not touch anything if I go out for a while?"

Alarm flashed over his rugged features for a scant moment before he schooled them into an expression of careful neutrality. "Of course," he said. "I will read more of the books you gave me."

"What do you think of them so far?" she asked.

"I am not sure what to think, yet," he replied, avoiding her gaze. She figured she'd leave him alone for the while, and went to change into street clothes. Ten minutes, a quick shower, and clean jeans and shirt later, she reappeared with her pocketbook slung over her shoulder and car keys in her hand. "I'm gonna go to my parents', then to the store," she explained. "I should only be a few hours." He nodded, and she felt quite bad for leaving him alone. She gave him a quick, impulsive kiss on the cheek, and left before she caved to her own sense of mushiness and stayed with him.

At her parents' house, she pilfered a few pairs of jeans, shirts, socks, and shoes from her father, and a pair of her brother's sweatpants. Leaving a note detailing her theft, she went to the store and stocked up. "Honey, I'm home," Kate sang out when she returned, her arms laden with heavily loaded shopping bags. 

Boromir's eyes widened to see her so burdened, and he took every bag from her, following her into the kitchen. "You should have told me to come help you," he scolded mildly. "I am not used to being still for so long."

He was feeling useless, Kate realized. After being part of the most important mission in his world for months, and spending all his life before the Fellowship as the elder son of the Steward of Gondor, Boromir was accustomed to being useful. Sitting around and reading must be driving him insane.

 As she began to cook, she looked over at him. "Do you know anything about building?"

He frowned. "Building what?"

"Houses."

"No, I fear not," Boromir replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I was thinking… you look pretty bored, and like you said, you're not used to doing nothing all day. My father owns a construction company, and if you knew anything about building houses, I thought maybe… you could help him."

"Kind you are to think of me, my lady, but I am a warrior, not a tradesman." His gaze was troubled. "Have I behaved in a way that would lead you to think me a peasant?"

Kate almost slapped herself in the forehead, realizing her stupidity. This man had been raised in a feudal society. She'd just insulted him by offering him menial work. "Well, um, see, in this world, we don't really have warriors, per se," she stammered finally. "I thought you'd like physical work, and being outside. Construction would provide those things for you." She stirred the sizzling bite-sized pieces of chicken. "I didn't mean anything else by it."

He nodded. "I understand. And…" he seemed to struggle internally for a moment. "I will do this construction, if you think it something I would enjoy."

"Oh, good!" Kate said with a big smile. "I'll call my dad after we eat." Then he frowned again, and she realized she'd have to explain what she meant by 'calling' someone. She sighed. This was getting to be quite difficult, and she still had no idea why it all had happened.

She couldn't stop herself from stealing little speculative glances at him while they ate in companionable silence. By the time she was stacking the plates and silverware in the dishwasher, she'd decided that she would paint Boromir as he defended the Hobbits… the moment of his death in Middle-Earth was, indeed, a dramatic and powerful one but it felt entirely too misleading to her… he'd died, but yet was not dead. Even though anyone who ended up buying the calendar would never know the truth, Kate knew… Boromir's story was not over. She couldn't portray it as such.

"Argh," she moaned, running her hands through her hair, mussing it even worse.

Boromir quirked a brow at her. "Is there a problem, my lady?"

Kate flopped down on the sofa. "I'm just all confused," she explained. "I don't know why you're here, or how, or what I'm supposed to do with you now, or what the hell Legolas was thinking when he started with the undressing and fondling…" Boromir's face changed from sympathetic, to concerned, to a flash of something that could have been anger before becoming carefully blank. "Ah, er, sorry. Didn't mean to mention that again," she stammered.

He inclined his head in a way that reminded her once more that he was a nobleman, born and bred to hold himself apart from the masses. "I am well aware of the ways of elves, my lady." He eyed her a moment. "Did his actions insult you?"

"Yeah, they did," Kate admitted. "I never gave him any reason to think he could manhandle me… er, elfhandle me… but he just started with the elbow-kissing and before I knew it he had my pants off."

Boromir looked thoughtful at the idea of elbow-kissing, as if he were filing away that information for a later time. It made her nervous. "That's an elf for you," he said at last, sounding much more cheerful than before. "But do not take it as an insult, lady. It was not meant as such."

"That's what he said," Kate admitted reluctantly. 

"Elves do not understand how it is different for Men and Women," he said. "Their joinings are frequent and casual, with love being rare but powerful when it does occur."

She frowned. "Sounds like a rather sad way to live, if you ask me."

"To me as well," he agreed, and his gaze was intent upon her, making her feel… strange. 

"Well then!" Kate exclaimed with forced cheerfulness, and stood up. "I have more work to do!"

Boromir stood as well, a knowing smile on his lips. "But you have worked long today. Is it not time for some rest?"

"Maybe later," she said, and fled to her studio, shutting the door behind her. She thought she heard him chuckle. Picking up her palette, she squeezed some paint out and loaded a brush, oblivious to the fact she hadn't put on her smock. "Dead men shouldn't flirt," she grumbled, and began to rough in his body on the canvas. "It's just not right."


End file.
